Fettuccine with Goat Cheese, Bacon, & Cherry Tomatoes

I’ve learned so, so much during my six months so far living in South Africa. One of those smaller, less consequential things is that there are so many foods out there that I have yet to try. Cape Town has introduced me to a love of curry I didn’t know I had, new seafood, ostrich, coriander, and countless other incredible foods.

Although my palate has grown leaps and bounds since college, I keep coming across seemingly ordinary foods and realizing that I’ve never tried them. Recently, one such food was goat cheese. We were served an incredible goat cheese salad during our stay at Inverdoorn for our safari and I realized it was something I hadn’t eaten before! Why?! It was so creamy with just a touch of smoky, and I fell head over heels.

Since we’re at the end of tomato season in the US, I’ve been seeing tons of gorgeous tomato-pasta dishes on Pinterest. I really wanted one for myself, so I came up with this fettuccine. It’s packed with cherry tomatoes, bacon, goat cheese, tons of garlic, and fresh basil, thyme, and rosemary. It’s fresh and hearty and so many of my favorite things.

Oh, and when I say tons of garlic, I mean a lotta garlic. Like have breath mints at the ready amounts of garlic. Like it might be best, for your coworkers’ sake, to not bring leftovers to work for lunch amounts of garlic.

And bacon because everything is better with bacon. The sweetness of the cherry tomatoes with the smokiness of the goat cheese and saltiness of the bacon is the combination to beat all combinations.

You can use whatever shape of pasta you like. I typically go for short noodles like fusilli because they’re so much easier to eat, but I felt like swirling the fettuccine would give a better guarantee that I’d get plenty of the other pasta components in each bite.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Toss the cherry tomatoes with 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1 teaspoon chopped thyme, and 1 teaspoon chopped rosemary. Roast in preheated oven for about 10 minutes or until tomatoes are soft and have started to collapse.

While the tomatoes are roasting, cook the bacon over medium heat in a skillet. Reserve the fat and drippings while cooking. Crumble bacon roughly with your fingers and set aside.

Without washing the skillet, add 1 tablespoon olive oil and 1 tablespoon of the bacon fat and drippings to the skillet. Over medium-low heat, add the minced garlic cloves and cook until fragrant and starting to brown, about a minute. Add the remaining chopped thyme and rosemary and cook for another minute. Set aside.

Cook the fettuccine according to package directions for al dente pasta. When done, reserve ½ cup of the cooking liquid and drain.

Add the cherry tomatoes, goat cheese, and bacon to the garlic herb mixture in the skillet over medium-low heat. Stir together and cook for about a minute, then add the cooked pasta and toss, cooking for another minute. Add reserved pasta water if the sauce needs more liquid, but this shouldn’t be a saucy pasta.

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Hi! I'm Chelsea.

I'm the author of Everday Sous Vide: It's All French to Me, a digital marketer by day, and food blogger and freelance content creator by night. I'm a University of Oregon grad currently in Portland, OR, my hometown. I first started this blog as a college student hoping to encourage other students to branch outside of pizza and boxed mac and cheese. While some things have changed since I finished school, I still rely on simple recipes to produce fun, comforting food!